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The Elephant - Part One
An eye-witness account… possibly
The sun is shining and the circus has come to Bakewell. I can’t tell you how excited we all are. They have elephants and I ain’t never seen an elephant before, they’re massive. They’ve got names as well. One is called Old Paul, though sometimes they call it Philis. My Grandad’s called Paul, he laughs when I tell him.
The circus is really entertaining but all I want to see is Old Paul. Then, there he is with two others. They parade around, their trunks swinging so close to us it makes us scream. They kind of climb up and rest their feet on each other and do things like that. They even take stuff from kids in the audience. I laugh till my stomach aches. I’m disappointed when they go off but then to my surprise Old Paul he comes back. I clap fit to bust and he comes right up to me. I can feel an old toffee stuck in me pocket. I dig a bit and eventually I fish it out. He takes it. I pull my hand back real quick in case he takes a fancy to that an’ all.
He pops it in his mouth then suddenly, he bellows and howls and runs around the ring. Everybody’s screaming now, people are climbing over each other to get away. I just stand watching Old Paul go wild swinging his trunk all over the place. He gets hold of one of the props holding the tent up and pulls, till it nearly falls over. Then he runs out, gets his legs caught in the ropes and that makes him really mad.
Keepers are running round like chickens with no heads and all the time Old Paul is going crazy. He runs off. Some run after him but I go home.
As I walk, I tip all the little stones out of me pocket. They’re a bit sticky and sharp and I wonder if one of them got into the toffee. I shouldn’t think so.
I’m walking up the hill when I hear shots, then I hear Old Paul again, he’s panicking. There are more shots, then everything goes quiet.
Mr Fox from Fly Hill tells us that when Old Paul ran away a gamekeeper shot at him. But he says elephants have thick hides and pellets wouldn’t go through. He says some soldiers were brought to town to shoot the elephant.
We went and had our picture taken standing on top of Old Paul. Turned out he was full of gas and he ‘trumpeted’ because of all us were standing on his stomach. Scared us half to death I tell you.
Old Paul was 65 years old, and he was known for having a bad temper, he’d killed a keeper once. My Grandad’s 65 and he has a bit of a temper too, though he hasn’t killed anyone… yet…
